14 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Although the lumbar puncture is a common procedure and has been performed without ultrasound for decades, other research studies suggest that there may be some benefits to using ultrasound. This study intends to see whether by using ultrasound there is increased success rate, decreased need for additional procedures, and less discomfort during the procedure.
The purpose of this study is to determine if performing an ultrasound to identify the space to insert the needle before performing a lumbar puncture will improve success of the procedure and patient safety.
During labor and delivery, pregnant women may choose to receive pain relief called epidural analgesia, which is the delivery of a numbing agent through the back and into a body space around the spinal column. This numbs the area of the stomach and the pelvis. Typically the numbing agent is lidocaine, which is a local anesthetic like your dentist uses. Some times the numbing agent is combined with another medication that causes drowsiness and relieves pain called a narcotic. One of the risks associated with having this kind of pain relief is unintentional puncture of a sheath of tissue that surrounds and protects the spinal cord when inserting the needle. This sheath is called the dura. This would cause the fluid surrounding the spinal cord to leak out and this would cause a headache. This headache is called a post-dural puncture headache \[PDPH\]. The headache can be mild or severe. Rarely, PDPH can be serious and cause bleeding or small clots in the brain and damage to nerves that come out of the brain. The purpose of this study is to test the use of a technique that uses a hollow cotton swab \[no needles\] to numb a nerve cell cluster that sits at the very back of the nasal cavity. The anatomical name for this nerve cell cluster is the sphenopalatine ganglion. This has been done before at BJH and other hospitals with positive results, but no formal studies have been conducted here. Also, the sphenopalatine ganglion \[SPG\] has been the treatment target for other kinds of headaches. To numb the SPG, a hollow tip cotton swab \[like a long Q-Tip\] is inserted through the nose to the back of the nasal cavity and a solution of numbing agent is slowly pumped through the hollow Q-tip. This study will include a group that will receive a salt solution through the swab instead of a numbing agent. Subjects will be offered BJH standard care for their headache if they do not have relief from the study procedures. Standard care would be decided by their treating physician and may include oral pain medications and/or medications like ibuprofen \[Motrin\] or they could have a procedure called an epidural blood patch. This is performed by injecting a small amount of the patient's own blood into the areas of the spinal column where the original epidural anesthesia was injected in order to "patch" the leaks in the dura.
This study will compare the VerTouch device to the conventional palpation technique for performing diagnostic and therapeutic neuraxial procedures.
Clinicians are often unable to successfully do a spinal tap. Ultrasound has been proposed as a method to improve success but it is not known if it helps. This study is designed to see if ultrasound improves the success rate.
The purpose of this study is to address the question, "What is the volume of blood for injection at epidural blood patch that most effectively relieves post-dural puncture headache?"
The reported rate of unsuccessful spinal taps in children, especially young infants, is high. Our hypothesis is that ultrasound assistance can improve the success rate of spinal taps.
Caffeine will be studied against placebo in patients with positional headache after a lumbar puncture (aka "spinal headache").
The primary purpose of this study is to determine if there are differences in block quality between the CSE and DPE techniques for labor analgesia in parturients in active labor. We hypothesize that when compared to the CSE technique, the DPE technique will significantly improve block quality in this population and require fewer "top-ups" and catheter replacements.
This study will compare the VerTouch device to palpation and ultrasound (US) techniques used to identifying the anatomic landmarks and optimal location for neuraxial access. This trial of the VerTouch device will be compared to the gold standard of palpatoin and the commonly cited US techniques.
The main objective of this study will be to determine if the dural puncture epidural (DPE) provides superior analgesia and better patient satisfaction when compared to traditional epidurals for cesarean sections, and to also determine if patient satisfaction in the DPE group is comparable to that of the CSE technique.
The primary objective of this study is to compare the onset and duration of the initial dose of medications given through three different epidural (conventional epidural, combined spinal epidural and dural puncture epidural) techniques for labor pain relief. The secondary objective of this study is to compare the fetal effects of these three epidural labor analgesia techniques.
The purpose of this study is to obtain cerebrospinal fluid from healthy children already undergoing a lumbar puncture procedure at New York Presbyterian Hospital, to act as healthy controls when compared to children with late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (LINCL), a fatal neurodegenerative disease.
The brain and spinal cord are surrounded by fluid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The CSF flows through channels in the brain and around the spinal cord. Occasionally, people are born with malformations of these channels. Syringomyelia is a pocket within the CSF channels that results from abnormal CSF flow. Syringomyelia is associated with problems in the nervous system. Patients with syringomyelia may be unable to detect sensations of pain and heat. If the condition is not treated it can worsen. Treatment of this condition is surgical. It requires that the flow of CSF is returns to normal. There are many different treatment options, but no one procedure has been shown to be significantly better than any other. In this study, researchers would like to learn more about how the CSF pressure and flow contribute to the progression of syringomyelia. Ultrasounds and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) will be used to evaluate the anatomy of the brain. Researchers hope that information gathered about anatomy and measures of CSF pressure and flow can be used later to develop an optimal surgical treatment for syringomyelia.